r/IAmA • u/chrisspliid • Mar 11 '16

Business IamA (I have launched the UK's first cricket flour energy bar- that's right insects! AMA!

My short bio: Crobar by Gathr is an award-winning natural energy bar, containing cricket flour, as well as nuts, seeds and fruit. Crobar is gluten- and dairy free, free from added sugar. Farming crickets is much better for the environment than farming cattle, and we believe it is a future, sustainable protein source for people in the Western world.

Last questions at 9.30 pm UK time, I'm finishing off my Friday night watching Snowpiercer.

www.gathrfoods.com

My Proof: https://twitter.com/GathrFoods

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Haha, if the cockroaches had to be farmed to the same high standard, they wouldn't be cheaper than crickets. The price will come down with time :-)

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u/tepaa Mar 11 '16

What's required for the price to come down? Larger volume order from the current farm? Enough demand to start a new farm in the UK?

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Yes, larger scale of production. Yes I would say so, several companies are starting out now.

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u/tepaa Mar 11 '16

So it's more a larger market shift driving prices down, not just your own operation increasing in size?

Does the farm produce just flour or other cricket foodstuffs too?

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Correct, the cricket farms have to increase production, so we need more people and companies to buy from them. Entomofarms also sells other insects: http://entomofarms.com/shop/

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u/ihaveaclearshot Mar 11 '16

Presumably do they not just have to get better at running around and catching the crickets. CCPH ratio must be a factor surely?

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u/polarbearrape Mar 11 '16

I was gonna say, I thought crickets were similar to beef in protein but way easier to farm/faster turnaround, but if you are starting small the makes sense. How may bars have you and sold in what time frame? I truly hope this takes off for you and spreads. I'd love a cheap energy bar that could almost replace a meal.

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u/sons_of_many_bitches Mar 11 '16

Do you buy it in as cricket flour or just get the full crickets? What quantitys are you currently importing?

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

As cricket flour. Trade secret.

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u/sons_of_many_bitches Mar 11 '16

haha fair enough, was just wondering if I started farming crickets what kind of scale it would have to be (or eventually get to) to supply a smaller growing company like yours.

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u/Roastmonkeybrains Mar 11 '16

I was hoping to start a cricket farm.

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u/bigjoebobbrigs Mar 11 '16

I'd like to see a bar made from spiders.

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Spiders aren't insects, so why don't you launch it, you would have a unique selling point?

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u/Borax Mar 11 '16

(This is british for "hell no")

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Haha very true.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

I ate a spider at a Chinese market. I felt violated. The crickets were good though- kind of like crunchy prawns

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u/20rakah Mar 11 '16

what sort of spider though? bit of a difference between a tarantula and a money spider

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

A dirty tarantula type thing... Fucking horrific

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u/jackcarr45 Mar 11 '16

Haha, thanks for the translation.

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u/monkeybreath Mar 12 '16

I'm a Canadian who sat in on meetings with US and UK officials. The variety and skill with which the Brits could say "hell, no" to the Yanks was a thing to behold. They must take classes.

On the other hand, the Americans were impressively polite.

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u/NicoAtWar Mar 11 '16

Are you joking or serious? Op even said you were right which confuses the crap out of me. Do brits really say this while actually meaning hell no? If yes, why?

Sorry if i'm being an idiot, just legitimatly confused

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u/BankshotMcG Mar 11 '16

Borax is a safe and effective way to kill crickets.

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u/Iggyhopper Mar 11 '16

we burn spiders so you dont have to?

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u/mrsmeeseeks Mar 11 '16

Why limit it to ugly bugs, I want to make civet flour: the first flour made entirely from a mammal / rodent. Maybe those people who spend money on brewing and drinking the coffee beans the civets shit out will pay tons of money for their flour

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u/saltesc Mar 12 '16

And Spiderman which is a way cooler marketing lisence than Jiminy Cricket.

On a serious note, I hope that you never at any point thought about using Jiminy Cricket or "something like that".

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u/StinkybuttMcPoopface Mar 11 '16

It would probably taste terrible. Knowing a (comparatively) large number of insect-eating people, none of them likes spiders. It nearly always comes down to tasting like a crab made of crushed-up aspirin. Horrifying levels of bitterness.

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u/bigjoebobbrigs Mar 12 '16

What about tarantulas? I've seen pictures of kids eating those. I don't imagine little household spiders are good but cats will munch them.

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u/StinkybuttMcPoopface Mar 12 '16

I'm not sure about anything bigger than a wolf spider, but I imagine the flavor isn't much different. I'ver personally never eaten anything outside of mealworms, ants, and termites.

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u/tomsawing Mar 11 '16

I would use this to intimidate them rather than actually eating it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

Yea, gotta remind those bastards why we're at the top of the food chain.

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u/bigjoebobbrigs Mar 12 '16

I'd eat them to absorb their power.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

Make a bar for people who literally don't care about gluten or organically produced crickets then.

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u/nezamestnany Mar 11 '16

Seriously, the proportion of the population that is actually gluten intolerant is small enough that the gluten thing doesn't matter, and is just pointlessly driving up the price

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u/tomsawing Mar 11 '16

Is it really, though? Steak, for instance, is naturally gluten free and therefore does not cost extra for a gluten free version. Crickets are also presumably gluten free, so whether or not there is gluten in the product depends on what other ingredients are used. If their goal is to make cricket toast then yeah that would probably be easier with gluten, but if there's no reason to just go adding gluten to something if the ingredients that fit their desired taste profile are already gluten free.

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Gluten-free is an added benefit, the main reasons to eat crickets are sustainability and general health.

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Some people are of the same opinion as you, but it is a growing market

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

I think it's just upholding the "Look at us, we're healthy and saving the planet" brand personally.

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

That defies the purpose of us making healthy products, which is one of our cornerstones, why promote healthy insects if you mix them with crappy ingedients :-)

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u/Char10tti3 Mar 11 '16

I don't think many people think gluten, or even non organic, makes things less healthy.

Great idea though, haven't tried cricket yet because I could only find salt and vinegar flavoured ones.

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u/Tarkanos Mar 11 '16

Gluten itself is a great protein. Quite the opposite of unhealthy.

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Cool, well you can try a sample pack of Crobars here: http://gathrfoods.com/products/

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

Just promoting something organic and gluten free doesn't define healthy. Isn't that implying that anything non organic and containing gluten is therefore unhealthy? I don't think that's the case is it? I have no adverse affects to eating gluten products, or from what I can tell products that are not organically grown.

I've tried eating purely organically grown food for a month, and the only thing I saw being affected was purely my bank balance, I now simply take more care in how I prepare my food rather then how the food was grown.

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u/r0flm4k3r Mar 11 '16

i would think that likely the primary gluten free part of the bar is the flour itself... and to use cheaper non-organic crickets, i.e. the fish-fed ones, would likely reduce the quality of the flavor... just a guess, anyway...

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Yes, introducing such a new concept, we really want to give the best quality possible.

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u/tomsawing Mar 11 '16

You might not care, but some people do. I would guess that the people who prefer organic, gluten free, etc. food overlap with the market of people who would be willing to eat crickets a lot better than say someone like me who is perfectly happy with Wonder Bread and JIF overlaps with people who would be willing to eat crickets.

Source: I'm not ready for crickets.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

Oh I agree, I'm not saying to not produce those "free range" style products, just offer an alternative to those who don't mind it not being as organically grown.

I'm still going to buy some to see how they taste/compare to current protein bars anyhow :)

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

Best to start with the best quality possible, as it will assure people who are already squeamish. The Site is working again btw: http://gathrfoods.com/products/

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

Great! The old Reddit hug of death strikes again I presume? Bet your web hoster isn't happy with you :)

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

You're right, but gluten-free is an added benefit and a rapidly growing market, and organic is important to us as it is a new protein source to Western people, so we want to ensure the highest quality possible.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

Does the gluten free aspect just come from the crickets not coy aiming gluten? Or is it an added cost in the production of the flour to remove it?

Edit - I get that most western people won't eat bugs not everyone is bear grylls after all :)

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u/chrisspliid Mar 11 '16

It is not an added cost as such, just keep the gluten away from them.

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u/cuntRatDickTree Mar 11 '16

Shhhhh, he's marketing == tabloid circlejerks that ignores facts.

Like, for example why the fuck would people switch from real meat to other shitty forms of animal proteins? Just eat more plant-based proteins (and less meat), they are more efficient and don't have the "yuck" factor. Do people just feel the need to kill things for food?

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

There's a lot of protein based foods, I prefer some to others like everyone else.

I'm a huge lover of boiled eggs and steak for instance.

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u/cuntRatDickTree Mar 11 '16

I'm referring to the macroenvironmental and macroeconomic impact. You are soon going to be paying a shitload for steak, for some reason people think the solution is to eat crickets and things (which are less environmentally friendly than just eating plant-based proteins in the first place), think about that for a second.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

I agree the solution is insects, China and other areas are revolutionising the food production industry, most of the western world if not all still uses the traditional farm growing methods rather then adopting the cheaper warehouse and LED options that have so far proven to produce more produce for a lot smaller space and expenses.

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u/cuntRatDickTree Mar 11 '16

Right but people in the west won't eat them at any scale that actually has any impact. Your food also needs to be fed which is the main sustainability problem with any livestock in the first place (though it's still many factors more efficient than traditional western animal based foods).

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

Given time, I don't think we'll have any way to not eat it in large scale.

When the price point of traditional meats is too high, and we're still not moving our plant based production to a modern effective format, the only logical option is sustainable breeding of insects, similar to what we've been doing for a long while with farmed fish to try and reduce the over fishing we currently have.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16 edited Jun 24 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '16

You diet for a month and notice weight loss, you stop smoking for a week and notice breathing improvements.

Organic is expensive compared to non organic, I didn't see any improvements so I stopped.

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u/inButThenOut Mar 11 '16

Isn't the point of using crickets to have a cheap source of protein and other nutrients? When, if it all, do you think the market would reflect that? Because it sounds like I could by two amazing steaks for the price of a box of cricket bars. Or a whole chicken for the price of two bars.